


Caught in a Dream

by killedby_writersblock



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gore, just posting it here for critique, most likely inaccurate at many points, this is a story for class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-02-12 01:09:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12948051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killedby_writersblock/pseuds/killedby_writersblock
Summary: This is a rewrite of my story Living Like Death (because that one was a crap first draft) so if you’ve read that and they seem similar, that’s why. It is very different though.





	Caught in a Dream

Sleep paralysis. The feeling of complete and utter helplessness when you feel people, sometimes things, touching you. Sometimes even the feeling of a sharp knife being drawn down from your sternum to your gut. It’s so dark, and I can’t move. It hurts. There are hands on my arms, moving them against my will. I try to move them back, but to no avail. It is cold, and my lower half is covered with a scratchy material. I want to shiver and regain the warmth that is quickly escaping my body. My muscles are frozen in fear. Time is slowing, and panic starts to grip my mind in its relentless, clawed grasp. The skin on my stomach is being stretched in an unnatural way. It is being folded back, exposing my vital organs to the open air. The hands are back on me yet again, but I can’t really feel them. They are near my stomach, but my nerves aren’t picking up the sensation. Oh. Oh gosh. This feels so wrong, so weird. It feels like my organs are moving and being pushed around. There is something sharp, and I feel blood start to pool in my exposed middle. The pain is unbearable; I am being probed and dissected, like a frog in a fifth grade science classroom. It feels like the hands are putting things into me, and whatever it is makes it feel wrong. It is taking up space that should be empty, and I want it to stop. I hate these dreams.

I feel myself being sewn back together, the flaps of skin covering up what they are supposed to. I feel unnaturally full, like I just ate too much food. The needle starts on my stomach, and slowly inches upward toward my chest. The constant piercing of my skin becomes a blur of agony slowly creeping along my body. As suddenly as it began, the sharp tugging is gone leaving behind buzzing nerves in its wake. I take a deep breath in relief, praying for that to be the last of the pain. My body is being lifted like a child’s rag doll. I am being forced into something tight and stiff, like a pressed shirt. The process is tedious and takes longer than it should. Several minutes pass as my limbs are shoved into their new cloth prisons, and the pant leg on my right ankle is rolled some. It is very uncomfortable, and try as I might, I cannot move to fix it. I hear a bit of plastic clattering, and then something is on my face. It feels soft yet prickly at the same time; the sensation is very confusing. It moves all over my face, hitting my nose and eyes very painfully. My face starts to itch, then the thing is back on my face. This time it is more localized, and staying near my eyes. I want to rub away the sensation, the prickly feeling growing too much. My face is left alone for a few minutes, but that only increases my discomfort. Whatever it put on me is powdery, and some got in my nose. I really need to sneeze, but I can’t. The feeling is completely miserable. The thing is suddenly back again, this time on my lips. They start to feel sticky, and I want to wipe them off. I feel disgusting and violated. Something covers my face again, but this time it stays there as the room grows colder and darker. My entire body tingles as I recall the sensations over and over until the cold numbs my nerves. Everything aches.

I feel myself being lifted by many hands; they are everywhere. My body feels like a dead weight being dragged down by a strong gravity. I am being placed on something padded, but I can still feel the hard surface underneath. It is pressing into my back. The temperature is warming up slightly around me, and I take a moment to breathe and collect my thoughts. I’ve been experiencing sleep paralysis since I was a child, but over the years the dreams have grown more vivid. At this point in my life, the dreams are scenarios that I might actually encounter in my normal life. For example, last week I dreamed that my cat was sick and I had to take her to the vet. It felt so real that I honestly thought I was awake. Dreams like that have always scared me because I never know if I am asleep or hallucinating. It’s even worse with the sleep paralysis because the sensations I feel blur the lines of reality even more.

“Hey- do you... take it... truck... -ease?” A muffled voice pulls me out of my thoughts. I cannot hear all of the words, so it is hard to make sense of it. I try to call out and let the person know that I’m here, but my voice won’t work. Another voice from far away yells back, but I cannot make out words. I am being lifted again, but I cannot feel the hands. The padded material I am laying on moves with me this time. I hear a car door open, and I am being set down. The door shuts. This must be the truck I heard the person talking about. I cannot make sense of why I am inside it. This dream is confusing me. It doesn’t seem like a scenario I would run into on a normal day, nor does it remind me of anything I’ve experienced in the past. I wrack my brain for an answer to all the questions running through my mind, but I can find none. The truck engine starts and the two people I heard earlier start a casual conversation. The steady rumbling of the truck and the soft, steady voices lull me into a trance-like state.

The door shuts loudly, bringing me back to what I think is reality with a start. I am lifted for a third time, but this time I am placed on what I think is an old cart. The wheels creak like they have been used for years, and they rattle as they roll along what sounds like a tiled hospital floor. I don’t recall any procedures coming up in my life that may have induced this dream.

“Take it into the main hall, and I’ll send someone in after I finish up this paperwork,” a man with a gruff voice says. I cringe as he mumbles curses under his breath. His voice sounds like sandpaper against a metal bucket. I am rolled down a hallway for a few minutes, the sound of the wheels echoing against the walls and providing a creepy ambience. I come to a stop in what I assume is the main hall, and the footsteps that once accompanied me recede back down the hallway. This room is much colder than the room in which I began, and part of me wished to go back there. The other part remembers the blinding pain of the needle. My stomach twitches against whatever they shoved into me in disgust. I listen for any clues that might help me figure out if I’m actually in a hospital or not, but all I can hear is the soft occasional rushing of water through the pipes and the buzz of an old lightbulb. The room feels dead, and the air grows thick and stale. I feel myself begin to panic, my lungs crying out for fresh air. Am I trapped under something? I don’t know where I am or what’s going on. I struggle to take a deep breath. The wound on my abdomen starts to throb as I sink into my misery.

A pair of footsteps is coming closer, and again I try to speak. I try to make a noise, move, or something that will catch this person’s attention and alert them to my need for fresh air, but I have no luck. The person grabs the cart I’m on and begins wheeling me while whistling a happy tune. It seems too happy for my current situation, sending a chill up my spine. As he moves me down what I assume is another hallway, I hear voices drifting from different areas.

“We’ll take great care of him, don’t worry Mrs. Cox.”

“The total will come to around $1500.”

“How was he the night before he came in?”

Similar conversations drift around me as I am taken somewhere new. A door opens and I am pushed into an even colder room. Why do they have to keep the temperature so low? It is making me hurt even more. I can feel my body begin to numb as the minutes pass. Occasionally, people walk by and I catch bits and pieces of their conversations. Most are typical, boring small talk, but others are full of complicated terms that I don’t understand like “primary aldosteronism” or “adrenal adenoma”. I’ve never been one for the sciences; they just never made any sense to me.

The door opens again, and multiple sets of footsteps walk in. “No visits, please, I don’t think I could handle that,” a frail feminine voice says.

“That’s perfectly fine, ma’am, we can just go straight to the site,” the gruff man I heard before tries consoling her. “Please just fill out these papers, and then we’ll get everything ready for you.” Papers shuffle and a pen scratches along them as the woman signs. They leave the room, plunging me into silence once more.

What seems like hours pass before someone come into the room again. It is the whistling person again; he creeps me out. He takes me down a long trail of corridors with many turns before slamming open a door. I hear the truck engine from before running, and I am loaded into it again. The whistling guy gets into the truck and starts to drive. He never stops whistling. The tune is an eerie melody full of minor scales and mismatching rhythms. It sounds almost like something you would hear in a horror movie. He starts humming to his tune, and his pitch never wavers even as the truck bounces over a pothole. His voice sets an eerie tone to the trip that causes time to seemingly stretch on forever.

Time is set right again as the man suddenly falls into silence. He opens a door, pulls me out, and starts moving me again. Occasionally I hear snippets of his song under his breath, as if he is trying to repress it.

“Here it is, safe and sound just like I promised,” began the whistling man. “Where do you want it?”

“Over there by the tent, probably. Oh, is there anything I need to sign?” a new voice says. They seem distracted and pause a lot to collect their thoughts.

“Right here,” the pen scratches on the paper, “and here,” more scratching, “and initial here. That’s it! Have a nice one!” The whistling man moves me again, still trying to keep quiet. He leaves me for the last time, my last grasp of what might be my reality leaving with him. I have no idea where I am aside from by a tent. At least before I know I could’ve been in a hospital, but now I don’t have a clue. I can hear the person the whistling man was talking to shouting orders, so there must be a few more people here. Wherever “here” even is.

“Put those arrangements on the left side, not the right! Set up the chairs in two neat rows before you leave. Hey, what do you not understand about the word ‘neat’? No, I don’t want your excuses I want you to do it right! Hurry up, the family will be here soon.”

I am even more confused now than I was before. My head starts to hurt as I try to make sense of this dream. I think back and try to remember being here before, but no luck. My dreams usually have context that I’ve either experienced before or soon will experience, but I can’t seem to make sense of this one. I sigh and try to relax or clear my mind. I don’t need to panic again, that’s the worst thing to do in dreams like this. It makes the whole experience infinitely more unpleasant and more often than not it leads to terrifying situations. I just have to stay calm and wait it out until morning. No big deal.   
The person yelling orders is talking to someone who just got here, walking him towards me. They are speaking quietly so it’s hard to understand what they’re saying.

“Thank you... short notice... apologize... inconvenience.”

“...no problem... happy to help.”

The conversation lulls as soon as they come near me, being replaced with solemn silence. I’m just trying to figure out where I am; I honestly want them to keep talking. I’m starting to hate silences.

My wish is soon answered in a different way. Many people are arriving and holding quiet, casual conversations with each other as they approach me. Some people are laughing at stories told by others, but some are speaking in cautious, hushed tones as if speaking too loud will break something. Overall there seems to be a heavy atmosphere, so full of tension it can almost be felt. The man who was speaking to the person I assume is in charge earlier starts to talk to some people, luckily I can understand.

“We’re ready when you are,” he states. There is a long pause, then a soft sigh from someone else.

“I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” she drifts off. There is another pause and a lot of shuffling like people are sitting down. The conversations have gotten quieter, but there is still a solemn buzz of voices drifting about.

The man clears his throat, and the murmurs cease. “Friends, family, we have gathered here today to praise God and to witness the miracle of our faith as we celebrate the wonderful life of Randall Ivers. We come together in grief, acknowledging our temporary human loss. May God grant us peace, knowing that one day we will be reunited,” the rest of his words fade away as my heartbeat pounds in my ears. Did I hear right? Randall Ivers? He said Randall Ivers.

But that’s me. 

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second draft for my story Living Like Death (which is now renamed to Caught in a Dream). This is the closest to the final draft as it will get, the final draft will just be a few grammatical edits. The other draft was a complete flop so here we go again!
> 
> Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated :)


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